


i will fight (for) you

by baibao, yukrens



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Bullying, M/M, Minor Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin, Summer, happy birthday sun!, the fic version of taekwondo sports anime basically, yes i am three months late
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-07-12 17:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16000337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baibao/pseuds/baibao, https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukrens/pseuds/yukrens
Summary: Summer is sweat and bruises and ice pops and butterfly bandages and sun-kissed skin and Lee Donghyuck.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is for donghyuck sdjhfhj and for all the people who've just started a new chapter in their lives. ♡  
> i wrote this with the feeling of cheer danshi!! (sports anime for some uni dudes starting an all-men cheering team, it's so good) in mind. and i've also taken some artistic liberties, so heads up for those.  
>   
> quick vocab things:  
> dojang: studios for tkd, or korean dojos, ig  
> dobok: uniforms for tkd

Summers in Seoul are sweltering heat and too many people locked in artificial cool. Pop music, with ‘summer feelings’, whatever that means, filters through the radios all over the city, making everything seem more colourful than it actually is. _Brightness_ is always very ‘in’ this season, present in people, in their smiles, in the sun, in the glare of light reflecting off sky-high glass buildings.

Summers in Seoul are busy with the rush of ten million individuals manoeuvring out of each other’s way.

Summers in Seoul are retreating from the outdoor courts and hiding in enclosed dojangs and pools. Summer is peeling out of stuffy blazers and slipping into doboks and swimming trunks. Summer is dripping sweat and aching muscles and the forced smile brought by dozens upon dozens of kids wanting to learn taekwondo without actually _learning_ it.

Minhyung wheezes, though he tries to contain it as much as possible, after the demo spar he has with his brother. Taeyong, annoyingly, is perfect as usual in the precision of his kicks, down to the neat man-bun atop his head. His dobok is only barely skewed, crumpled at the chest from where Minhyung was able to land a decidedly solid front kick, if he could say so himself.

The ages six-to-ten class _oohs_ in awe.

Cute, but not quite cute enough. Minhyung still feels a little winded, the shoulder caught by a well-timed roundhouse smarting when he moves. Still, he tries to keep the sweetest smile on his face.

His father would kill him if he frowns inside his beloved dojang.

“And that’s how most sparring matches would play out,” his brother explains animatedly, a brilliant grin on his lips. He hears someone sigh loudly and he knows it has to be one of the many ‘supportive’ sisters of the students who come to stare at Taeyong. “Of course, you’d need more training and you’d have to be wearing full gear. Minhyung and I were able to do that because we know how to control ourselves…”

Minhyung unapologetically tunes out his brother’s babble. It has only been three weeks since he’d graduated from high school uneventfully. The cherry blossoms had fallen early this year, so the trees were bare as he accepted his flimsy diploma. He took pictures with faces he’d hoped to never see again, smiled for the cameras, for the people, for his parents.

Taeyong had cried, then. Taeyong… he cries for Minhyung a lot, though Minhyung can never, could never, would never understand why.

By the time he’s tuned back in, the pain in his shoulder is dull and his breathing is even. Taeyong is already saying his goodbyes, letting some of the children embrace him around the waist with only a fond peal of laughter. Minhyung doesn’t get as many hugs, but he doesn’t mind. He pats the head of a little girl before she rushes to her dad, giggling all the way. Minhyung watches as he picks her up and puts her on his hip, pressing a loud smooch to her hair. They talk about plans for dinner and a movie.

Taeyong taps him on the shoulder to grab his attention, shooting him a knowing, but maddeningly older-brotherlike, smile. “Are you sure you and Jeno can handle the next class alone?”

It’s an eleven-to-fifteen class with students who are, hopefully, neither too rowdy nor too clumsy. In thought, Minhyung pushes his short, sweat-slick hair from his forehead; he knows it sticks up oddly, but he doesn’t care. “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he says. If all else fails, he can tell Jeno to smile extra prettily - or even bring Jaemin along as backup. People tend to pay attention when they smile. “Have fun on your date.”

Taeyong blushes happily, the way he tends to do when his boyfriend is brought into the conversation, which is to say, a lot. He’s already pulling at his belt before the last of their clients leave the dojang. “Okay, I’ll leave it up to you, then!”

When his brother has left the premises, Minhyung sighs and reaches for his phone to call Jeno. The mats are all over the place and there is no way he’s dealing with all of this alone.

 

“What are you going to do?”

The ceiling to Jeno’s room is an unassuming white, the walls a dull dove grey, and the sheets a harsh black. Jeno is boring at best in his tastes, and it reflects in the swatch of his personal space.

Jeno himself sits on the wheeled chair, back turned to Minhyung and face too close to the desktop monitor. His hair is bleached a fair, fair blond that is almost white, swooping over his eyes and brushing against his nose. It’s a stark contrast to the palette of the rest of his room, yet a fitting one. He hums in question.

“I mean, after the summer.” The clock on the wall ticks. “What are you going to do, then?”

Jeno pulls back from his computer, the tires of his seat squeaking against the wooden flooring. He spins idly, before he comes to a stop at the foot of his bed. Minhyung watches him, hugging one of Jeno’s many fluffy pillows to his chest.

“University,” is what he eventually says, scratching at the sharp curve of his cheekbone where a pimple is growing beneath the surface of his skin in a soft pink. He brushes his hair over it absently, hiding it from view. “I’ll study, maybe join a few orgs, find a job if I can. Take Nana out when he lets me.”

“What else?” Minhyung presses.

Jeno’s head falls to the side in thought, sunlight streaming in from the windows painting him gold. People at school always used to say Jeno was beautiful, a godly kind of handsome. His strong, chiseled features aren’t exactly Minhyung’s type, but he can understand the lingering awe that resonates through him when he sees his best friend. A gentle smile graces his lips. “I want to dance.” He smiles bashfully at Minhyung. “With Nana, of course.”

Of course. Minhyung can’t help but smile back.

“Same,” he says, picking at a piece of lint on Jeno’s duvet. “I mean, university, studying, orgs.”

He doesn’t sound too excited to himself, and he knows Jeno thinks the same. Minhyung doesn’t like thinking about _what happens now._

“Maybe you should try dancing with us.” _Maybe you should quit taekwondo, too._

He laughs mirthlessly. “Maybe.”

 

Minhyung knows he should be used to opening the dojang alone by now, but it is still an undoubtedly strange experience to do so, even so long down the road.

Sunlight filters in through the windows, catching dust in the air. The Tyndall effect, is what he knows it’s called from his physics class two years before. The traditional mats, old and worn and stained in some spots from both Minhyung’s and his brother’s sweat and blood, are wiped as clean as can be, and the wide floor-to-ceiling windows are polished until they’re near-invisible.

Sighing, he haphazardly drops his gym bag inside the locker room and reaches for a spray bottle of alcohol and a rag. It’s barely eight in the morning, but he’s been up since his mother yelled at him at maybe half past six to water her pocket garden (which he did in his sleepwear, or, in other words, his underwear). He is sluggish at the moment at best, but the first class of the day is the six-to-ten that begins at eight-thirty. Grunting, he heaves the blue mats close to the long mirrored walls of the dojang and stomps on their jutting puzzle-like bits until they form one massive, hopefully seamless mat. Then he retrieves the spray bottle and the rag he’d abandoned by the front desk and moves onto sanitising the surface area of the thing.

It’s a quarter past eight when he finishes and rushes back to the locker room to change into his uniform. He’s already exhausted, because opening a dojang really isn’t meant to be a one-man job, and sweating through his tank top. As he slips into his dobok and feels his body immediately begin to heat up (if professionalism wasn’t a thing, he wouldn’t even begin to bother), his phone buzzes on the bench with a message from his brother. _I might be a little late_ , it reads, _I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you, baby bro!_

Maybe Minhyung’s a little dramatic when he groans aloud. Maybe he’s acting a bit too bratty. But it’s just so _hot_ and the six-to-ten kids don’t even like him, and he _knows_ their sisters are only going to be disappointed when they see the Skinny Lee at the door welcoming them in instead of the Hot Lee and -

He clamps his hands over his face and groans into them.

He really thought petty teenage things ended in high school.

 

His family owns the Lee Dojang, has owned it since its founding half a century ago. A family business, a tradition, a lifestyle.

They still have some of the old furnishing, the wooden beams that crisscross the ceiling, weighed down by massive, creaking fans; the mats are the same ones his father learnt taekwondo on, torn up and repaired only in the places it _could_ be torn up and repaired. The front counter has etchings on it from every other Lee Minhyung’s age who had to spend all of their time there on their free days, has little dents and chip-offs in its legs from all the times little Lees and other kids run into it. There are ruined spots of plaster in the walls of the locker rooms from accidents or small outbursts of anger and frustration in the form of violence. Taeyong and Minhyung are no exception from the seeming tradition of very literally leaving their mark on the family dojang.

Minhyung is almost certain that some of the blood staining the mats is his from when he was nine and prone to sudden nosebleeds because the weather was too warm for his body.

He is absolutely positive that the splatters by his feet are his from that one time he accidentally caught Taeyong with a, very bad, roundhouse to the face and cut him in the cheek and promptly started bleeding from the nose as a reaction to his stress.

He stares at it resolutely as his father inspects every nook and cranny of his precious dojang for something that Minhyung may have missed while he was gone.

Finally, his father says, “Seems like everything’s where it should be.” Minhyung releases a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding.

It isn’t a _thank you_ or a _job well done, son_ , but Minhyung takes the breadcrumbs he’s spared.

“Minhyung,” his father begins in a peculiarly strained tone. Minhyung feels his guts twist and clench anxiously. “You do understand that this is not a punishment, yes?”

His guts drop to his feet. “Yes, father.”

His father sniffs, nodding. “Good.”

They exchange a few more words, his father enumerating an entire catalogue of tasks Minhyung must tend to within the week. His head is already spinning from the onslaught of things to do.

Before he leaves, his father clamps a heavy hand on Minhyung’s shoulder, fingers clenching for a brief moment.

Minhyung doesn’t know what to think of it.

As soon as the confusion settles, he rushes for his phone and tries to type down as much as he remembers from what his father had told him. He counts the items on his list, once, twice, and struggles to keep in a whine at the whopping total of twelve duties. He doesn’t know how he’s going to accomplish anything around working in the dojang and running errands for his mother, but he hasn’t a choice anyway. So he purses his lips almost painfully and surveys the screen of his phone once more.

His eyes linger on the last, barely coherent item on the list: _lee donghyuck private classes wed &sat 5pm just minhyung ((start next week!)) _ It is unusual, to say the least. Minhyung has so many questions, but his father’s tone was firm when he informed him of this arrangement and he hadn’t bothered.

 _Private lessons_ , his father had said solemnly, _for a very important boy._

Minhyung wonders what’s so important about this Lee Donghyuck that he has to teach him alone.

 

It has been a month and a half since he’s started helping out at the dojang for the summer, and frankly, Minhyung is tired _._

While Minhyung slaves away cleaning the dojang and gaining unimpressed looks from _children_ on the daily, Jeno spends his free time being dragged by Jaemin all over the country, flooding Minhyung’s otherwise dry timeline with disgustingly couple-y photos of their romantic getaways.

“ _You should have come with us_ ,” Jeno’s voice filters through the tinny speakers on Minhyung’s phone. His best friend is calling from a rest stop on the way to Oido, probably lounging in a seat under the sun and watching Jaemin hoard all of the snacks, even the ones he won’t eat, like the gluttonous brat he is. Must be nice. “ _You’d like it. It’s pretty fun._ ”

“And be stuck with you and the boyfriend for three hours in a car?” Minhyung grits his teeth, working his way through another rep of push-ups. His biceps strain, but he’s been putting off working out for too long. “No, thank you.”

“ _We’re not that bad_ ,” Jeno grumbles petulantly. Minhyung can imagine the way he rubs at his nose in mild embarrassment. “ _...Right?_ ”

“The fact that you had to ask me that is already an answer,” he answers drily, a smirk tugging at his lips. It’s so easy to make fun of Jeno; Minhyung understands why Jaemin enjoys it so much.

“ _Whatever. How is the dojang?_ ”

“More effort than it’s worth,” he sighs, and it’s the most honest thing he’s said since Jeno called him ten minutes ago. “I’m so tired.”

“ _I’ll take some more classes when I get back_ ,” suggests Jeno. “ _I promise._ ”

“Sure,” Minhyung agrees easily, snatching his towel from where it is slung over the bench and wiping his sweat. Maybe he should have said something like _no, you don’t have to_ or _it’s fine, I should handle it_ , but what’s point in Jeno being a Lee if he doesn’t act like he’s Minhyung’s kind of Lee? He’s almost entirely certain that his father likes Jeno more than his own children. He stares at his phone contemplatively. “I still have private lessons to take care of anyway.”

“ _Private lessons?_ ” Jeno’s voice echoes back. “ _Since when did the dojang offer private lessons?_ ”

“We don’t.” He takes a seat on the bench and picks his phone up, turning it off speaker mode and pressing it to his ear. It turns slick with sweat, but he is grossly used to it. “But father says this kid’s special, or something.”

“ _What? Why is he special?_ ”

The paint on the bench is peeling off in spots. He picks at them with a fingernail. “I don’t know.”

“ _That sounds… sketchy, Minhyung._ ”

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I know.”

“ _Hmm, I’m just saying. It can’t be too bad anyway if your father is the one suggesting it._ ”

“I hope you’re right.”

“ _I probably am._ ” There’s rustling, the transferring of a phone between hands. Jaemin’s voice warbles through, an incoherent string of sounds. A laugh. “ _Oh, we have to go. I’m going to drive. Unless you want to talk with Jaemin or something?_ ”

Minhyung shakes his head even though Jeno can’t see him. “Nah. Tell him he’s going to get fat and ugly and you’ll leave him for someone hotter if he eats every establishment he comes across out of business.”

“ _He’d kill me._ ”

“Maybe, maybe not. Have fun, you two.”

“ _Thanks. You, too, I guess. Call you later?_ ”

“You don’t have to,” Minhyung says, quietly.

A beat. “ _If you say so…_ ”

“I do. Drive safely.”

“ _Okay. Bye, dude._ ”

He hums. “Bye.”

His phone beeps.

 

Minhyung doesn’t know what he expected Lee Donghyuck to be like, but it definitely isn’t this boy shorter than him, looking so much younger than him, with butterfly bandages on his arms and an angry little pout and a chauffeur.

“No,” Minhyung hears him insisting to the elderly man in the suit standing by the sleek, black car in front of the dojang’s entrance, “you don’t have to wait for me! I can get home myself.”

“I am aware,” his chauffeur says patiently, in a tone that suggests they’ve had this conversation more than once before, “but your father will be greatly displeased.”

A daddy’s boy? Minhyung doesn’t want to listen in more than he already has, doesn’t like the uncomfortable sensation settling in his stomach, so he carefully steps back inside the dojang and opens the door roughly. The chimes jingle overhead obnoxiously and he tries for a friendly smile.

“Hey,” he goes, as casually as he can with the boy’s annoyed gaze trained onto him, “are you Lee Donghyuck?”

The boy turns his cute nose up, looking down on Minhyung even though Minhyung is a few inches taller. “And if I am?”

He shrugs a shoulder. “I’m Lee Minhyung, the son of the Lee Dojang’s owner and your private instructor.”

Donghyuck’s mouth drops open. “You’re _kidding_ me.”

He frowns, mildly offended and sort of embarrassed. Minhyung knows he doesn’t look like much, but he didn’t have to sound that disbelieving. “Well, if you’re not actually Lee Donghyuck, my five o’clock on Wednesdays and Saturdays, then yes, I’m kidding you and this was all a big mistake.”

The chauffeur taps Donghyuck on the shoulder and indiscreetly looks Minhyung’s way. Tentatively, Minhyung offers him a smile.

As though with great effort, Donghyuck heaves a sigh and hikes the strap of his gym bag over his shoulder. He looks at the ground as he pushes past Minhyung into the dojang, and Minhyung can’t help but notice the impressive length of his eyelashes and the moles that decorate his face in small constellations. Before closing the door behind them, Minhyung waves genially at the chauffeur, who tips his head in acknowledgement.

“So,” Minhyung starts. “Let’s do this.”

They begin with introducing themselves to each other formally. After the initial awkwardness, Donghyuck seems to grow into himself, back straightening and expression smoothening.

The set to his lips tells Minhyung he isn’t one to take shit.

That’s alright, he thinks privately, they can work with that. Minhyung tries small talk first as he sets up. He takes a moment to decide whether or not Donghyuck would prefer working out with the air conditioning on, then decides that _he_ would prefer it on, and goes to make that happen.

Donghyuck is opinionated, if reserved. Minhyung chalks that up to this being their first meeting. He’s sure that in a few weeks, he can get Donghyuck to curse at him. He seems like the type. Rich kid with nothing more than his parents’ money and his pride to his name.

“Do you do sports?”

Donghyuck isn’t shy in any way. He is fierce and loud, but there is a fragility to the slope of his shoulders that Minhyung can’t help but want to be gentle in ways he would typically not be.

“I used to play football,” is what he says. “Not so much anymore since I need to start getting ready for college entrance exams.”

An incoming senior, huh.

“Alright,” Minhyung replies, rolling up his sleeves because he’s going to get a stroke if he doesn’t cool down just a bit. “I don’t know much about football, but I don’t think it’s any similar to taekwondo.”

Donghyuck’s lips quirk in the corner in a little amused smirk, like he thinks Minhyung’s stupid, or something. It makes him bristle a bit because this _kid_ is rude. But the fact that it’s not so different from the little smirks Jaemin spares him from time to time reins him in.

He breathes in, breathes out.

“Okay,” he claps his hands the way Taeyong does sometimes with the younger kids (his brother says it keeps their attention; whether that’s true or not, however, Minhyung doesn’t think about it too much), “let’s start with some conditioning and see what we can do with you.”

Donghyuck sneers. “Can’t we just get on with it?”

“And let you get hurt? No, thank you.”

“Fuck off, Minhyung.”

Ooh. Not even a day, then. Minhyung’s smile tightens at the corners. “Call me _seonsaengnim._ It doesn’t matter if we’re almost the same age, okay? You’re still a student.”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes so dramatically, Minhyung has to wonder if it hurts him to do so.

A little pettily, he says, “Maybe we can start with the rules, then. That way, you won’t have to talk or get up.”

Donghyuck sneers, then crosses his arms over his chest. His stomach caves in, like he wants to get as far away from Minhyung as possible, but he isn’t letting himself. “No,” he finally says, in a small but firm voice, “let’s get on with it.” He sniffs. “ _Ssaem._ ”

Minhyung’s returning smile is almost vitriolic.

 

At the end of the first day, Minhyung doesn’t really know what he thinks about Lee Donghyuck.

Still, he doesn’t seem to be all that bad.

 

The dojang feels lonely without Jeno by his side.

It is a long-time-coming sort of thing, Jeno leaving the Lee Dojang. Taekwondo has never really been his thing, despite how much he excels in it. In his eyes, it’s something he does to keep Minhyung close. When he finally gathered the courage to tell Minhyung’s father he had no intentions of continuing to compete in taekwondo, even when he gave out all the wrong reasons why, Minhyung had felt so relieved for him. Jeno is his best friend, and Minhyung wishes for nothing more than his comfort and happiness.

Selfishly, though, he misses him.

It doesn’t feel right to make his way through the early morning fog with sleep nestled in his eyes and his bones, only to be forced awake in a place that isn’t even occupied by anyone except himself. The long mirrors show a row of dozens of similarly lost-looking Minhyungs to stare back at him, at his messy hair, his shabby clothes, and his sockless feet. He used to open the dojang with Jeno during their shared summer breaks, knocking and knocking and knocking at his best friend’s door until he’s ready to face an entire day of training with him.

It was fun, then, when the dobok still felt too big on them and their belts too restricting. They went through white, yellow, and all the colours together. Jeno may have reached black first skillswise, but it was still something they had done together, actually attaining it.

Minhyung remembers fooling around with his best friend before the dojang opened to the public for the day, mock-sparring all over the mats until their refined kicks and sharp blocks turn into loose grappling and juvenile wrestling on the ground. Taeyong enjoyed watching them like that, always kept his phone close just to film them make fools of themselves, but Minhyung’s father wasn’t the same. Taekwondo isn’t meant to be fun, he would say, it isn’t a game.

Which, alright, Minhyung knows now. He doesn’t remember a time when he genuinely felt like doing taekwondo was fun.

It’s a miracle he’s lasted this long, he thinks. The locker room smells faintly of sweat and well-used gear - slightly unpleasant, but not at all unfamiliar. The bench squeaks beneath him as he tries to remove his trainers without using his hands. This is the same bench he’d sat on in twenty-o-eight, when they’d held a small competition for amateur practitioners and Minhyung had his ass handed to him on a silver platter by a girl from a neighbouring school. His toes had barely brushed the floor, then, and now he has to bend his knees up to his chest to get comfortable.

There is a small, nearly indiscernible depression in the wood of the flooring from one of many times Minhyung’s phone had slipped out of his back pocket as he changed. He runs the pad of his big toe over it, feeling for the dip. He huffs in shallow amusement.

Unexpectedly, a buzz sounds through the locker room and he just about topples off the bench in his haste to gather his dobok top in his arms. He pulls it over his head and grabs his belt on his way to the front door, where the first students of the day wait for him.

Sometimes he forgets that he’s too busy to feel lonely.

 

Astonishingly, Donghyuck is a quick learner.

Their initial conditioning session reveals to Minhyung that his newest student has a relatively healthy body, if a bit lacking in stamina. But that is easy to work with if they pace themselves just right. He is a little soft here and there, which is perfectly normal and nothing to be concerned about. Donghyuck also has strong legs, most likely from his history in football, and a good, innate sense of balance. From the get-go, he is… physically promising, to say the least.

When he feels like Donghyuck isn’t going to strain himself too much, Minhyung asks him to try out some kicks. _Kick as high as you can_ is his exact instruction. The ungodly sound Donghyuck lets out in frustration spurs Minhyung on for the rest of their session. It turns out that for the length of his legs, Donghyuck can’t reach very high with them.

They can work on that, too.

A handful of meetings later, Donghyuck exhibits an impressive rate of improvement. Minhyung is honestly in awe of how disciplined he is when he isn’t trying to push at all of Minhyung’s buttons seemingly for the fun of it. When Minhyung asks him to do ten burpees, Donghyuck does ten and then some.

Minhyung isn’t really certain if that is just how he does things, or it’s a very characteristically Lee Donghyuck method of getting the upper hand on him. Either way, it doesn’t matter much. And if Donghyuck is doing this to get on Minhyung’s nerves - well. Minhyung isn’t going to be the one to tell him it’s doing the exact opposite.

Truthfully, Minhyung is clumsy, so to speak, with mentoring Donghyuck. He isn’t used to focusing the entirety of his attention onto just one other individual, isn’t used to picking up every single detail and having to think around the problems that arise. He isn’t used to not having his brother do all the talking for him, isn’t used to telling someone that they’re getting everything wrong. He isn’t used to playing music in the background (switching between girl group music and Michael Jackson albums, both upon courtesy of one Lee Donghyuck’s phone) just to fill the spaces between the uneven breaths of someone who isn’t himself. He isn’t used to being so _close_ , isn’t used to being so familiar with a student.

More than that, he isn’t used to dealing with Lee Donghyuck.

Donghyuck is just… such a complex being. A month down the road and Minhyung still can’t understand the things he says half the time and the way he makes his hackles rise the other half. Off the bat, one would assume that Donghyuck is an individual bursting with confidence in himself, probably backed by his family’s prestige and whatever little achievements he has gathered himself. Borderline arrogance is laced through the volume of his voice (loud) and the acid in his frequent commentary (pushing at a pH level of 1, which means very acidic).

Sometimes, Minhyung catches himself lagging for a second or two just trying to process something Donghyuck had done. It is absolutely ridiculous.

Then sometimes Donghyuck says something so witty or absurd it takes Minhyung by surprise and makes him _laugh._ That is, frankly, even more ridiculous.

It doesn’t help either that Donghyuck is distracting.

Donghyuck is pretty. It’s the among the earliest observations Minhyung had made about him. He’s pretty in a nonconventional way, with his sun-kissed skin and his burnt auburn hair. Even the colourful butterfly bandages he always seems to be wearing only add to his charms.

And his voice - he has such a _pretty_ voice. Minhyung thinks it’s unfair that Donghyuck looks a bit like a fairy and sounds a bit like a fairy, because once he opens his mouth and lets it run, he turns into something short of a demon.

Still, Donghyuck isn’t all that bad. He works hard when he needs to and never openly complains about the drills Minhyung pushes him to complete. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, even to himself, that he had been stunned silent when Donghyuck had offered to wipe down the mats on the first day. He just… didn’t seem like the type.

So save his devilish tendencies, Lee Donghyuck is both an angel and a fairy. Minhyung thinks that’s awfully unfair.

The thought runs through his mind as he gets Donghyuck to practice his roundhouse kicks. It’s a basic form, but Donghyuck still has a bit of a flexibility problem so Minhyung makes a note to make him go through a few reps before they’re done for the day.

“Oh, _fu_ -”

Donghyuck hits the floor with a thud that rattles Minhyung, missing the mats by centimetres. His pretty face screws up in a pained expression, his mouth drops open in a silent gasp. Minhyung throws away his guards, stomach lurching, and grasps for him.

“Oh, fuck,” he says, hands hovering everywhere but not quite _touching_ , “I’m so - are you alright?”

Donghyuck shoots him a glare. “What do you think?” It doesn’t come out quite as mean as he probably intended, and they both know it. There are tears pricking at the corners of Donghyuck’s eyes and all the air in Minhyung leaves him in one breath. He feels so _bad._ Donghyuck is obviously exhausted, but Minhyung still insisted on pushing him further even when he knew he was at his limit.

He breathes in, then out.

“Come on.” He offers his arm to Donghyuck and waits patiently for the other boy to pull himself up. His eyes roam Donghyuck’s form, cataloguing the way he moves and searching for anything out of place.

Carefully, he leads the other boy to a bench pushed to the wall and stands by until Donghyuck is settled comfortably, then he races for the ice packs they keep in the mini-fridge in the locker room for situations exactly like this. He returns to Donghyuck with his shirt pulled up above his stomach and his palm massaging the jut of his left hip. Minhyung can’t bite back the smile that grows at the sight of Donghyuck’s adorable little pout.

“Here,” he says, nudging Donghyuck’s hand away, “let me.” Minhyung has knelt down before him, and he inspects the flushed spot where Donghyuck’s palm had just been. Visibly, it doesn’t seem to be swelling too much and he presses his thumb to it experimentally for a feel. At Donghyuck’s sharp inhale, he apologises quietly and gingerly touches the irate area with the ice pack. The pads of his fingers are beginning to sting from the cold, but he grits his teeth and holds on.

“It doesn’t look that bad,” he tells the other boy after a few moments, watching the contrast of their skin. Minhyung has always known that he was paler than the average Korean; Jaemin and Jeno are fair-skinned, but they both have such healthy flushes of colour to them. Minhyung looks like he’s a corpse sometimes, his brother doesn’t like letting him forget it. Donghyuck is darker, golden. He always looks like he’s… glowing. He blinks. “Um. It might, uh, bruise, though. I mean, it’ll probably bruise. We can take a break for a bit, just keep icing it until the swelling goes down.”

He tilts his head back. “Did you get that?”

A faint sense of amazement jolts through him at the pink tint to Donghyuck’s face. The other boy scowls and puts one hand over Minhyung’s face, pushing him off; his other hand takes the ice pack from him. “I can do it myself,” he sniffs.

Minhyung has to reach out behind him so he doesn’t topple over at the sudden shift in his equilibrium. Laughing, he just says, “I know.”

 

Minhyung misses sparring.

He spars sometimes with his older brother for show - but that’s just it. It’s only for show. They only spar to let the kids see what it’s like to put the moves they’re taught into real use, except it is never actually real.

Sometimes Minhyung feels like a fake for doing it, like he’d spent the last decade and a half of his life just playing pretend, until he remembers that the only reason he and Taeyong can pull it off without accident is because they’re good. It’s because they’ve practiced for years upon years that Minhyung is able to hold his own against a crescent kick to his solar plexus and retaliate immediately with a neat turning kick, followed by a roundhouse _without_ damage.

Still, though, there’s a difference between sparring for education and sparring just for fun.

He isn’t exactly certain if this is a missing-the-old-days thing or a missing-Jeno thing. He tries not to think too long about it.

In any case, he does feel significantly more excited about wearing a dobok when his best friend’s around to wear one with him and they both can suffer through the suffocating heat and the uncomfortable humidity of the dojang in the summer.

Between the two of them, Jeno is the better taekwondo practitioner by far. Minhyung has learnt to come to terms with the fact that Jeno is simply a naturally exceptional athlete and all he can do is practice and practice and hope he doesn’t fall too far behind.

There is a thrill to having matches with Jeno that Minhyung doesn’t experience anywhere else. Perhaps it has something to do with that fact that they’ve been friends long enough to know what it’s like to hurt each other and how to rebound from it like it never happened. After all, there is a comfort in familiarity and unbridled trust.

It’s that same trust that clues Minhyung in on Jeno’s next move, and he blocks the approaching forty-five kick with a low block and then tries for a front kick. Jeno is quick to take two steps back, grinning at him. Then he charges.

They go back-and-forth for a while. It’s a Tuesday morning and the dojang is typically empty around this time. Their earliest class of the day is at eleven, and a glance to the screen of his phone tells him they still have time to spare.

Jaemin, who occupies one of the benches for spectators, claps enthusiastically when Jeno manages to get a kick in hard enough to make Minhyung topple over. The asshole cheers for his boyfriend, then boos Minhyung when he gets up. He flips him off in response then turns to Jeno, who’s smiling in that part-sheepish, part-lovestruck way he does when Jaemin’s done something questionable. Which happens more often than Minhyung would prefer.

“Sorry,” Jeno says, although they all know he’s never actually apologetic about Jaemin’s behaviour. He helps Minhyung dust his uniform off, patting his ass because he knows Minhyung _hates_ when he does that, then smiles. “Round two?”

After a quick, vindictive elbow to his best friend’s gut, Minhyung shrugs. “Sure.”

When they finally bore him, Jaemin leaves them to make a quick snack run, and the two are forced to change out of their sweat-soaked doboks. The heat in the air is almost syrupy on their skin, and they give each other assessing looks before flopping onto the dry portion of the mats only in their underwear.

“Jaemin’s going to yell when he comes back,” Minhyung slurs, hit with a sudden wave of drowsiness.

Eloquently, Jeno grunts.

They both lay there in silence for what feels like half an hour, but is probably actually only a handful of minutes. Jeno turns on his side and smacks a hand down on Minhyung’s exposed stomach. Minhyung flinches, twisting around and pushing him away with a foot.

Jeno snorts and rolls back until he’s facing the ceiling, hair spread above his head. “What’s it like?”

Minhyung struggles to keep his eyes open. “What’s what like?”

“Private lessons.” Minhyung can hear the scraping of Jeno’s nails against the mats in his contemplation. “How’re they like?”

It takes a moment for his mind to work. “Um,” he begins intelligently, a palm rubbing his face to combat the urge to take a nap on the floor. “They’re… nice.”

“Are they?” Jeno wiggles until he’s close, his cheek pressing into Minhyung’s shoulder. They’re both grossly sticky with sweat and the close proximity is only making the world feel more like the pits of hell, but Minhyung finds he doesn’t have it in him to make a fuss and shove his best friend of over a decade away.

“Jaemin’s going to yell when he gets back,” is all Minhyung says on the matter (it is a default response, at this point). Jeno doesn’t reply, and instead butts at Minhyung’s chin with the top of his head until he concedes and begins to speak about the boy he thinks he’s finally befriended. He moves so that Jeno is curled comfortably against his side and his shoulder is no longer an unwilling pillow and thinks.

“They’re…,” he fishes around for an apt term and settles, lamely, with “different.”

The snort that Jeno lets out at his expense is both rude and unnecessary.

“Shut up.” Minhyung hates that he blushes so easily and hates it even more that he’s blushing when the dojang is already so warm. He feels like his head is about to explode.

“It took you a long time to think about that?” Jeno smothers his laugh into his hand, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

“You’re such a dick,” Minhyung tells him a little meanly (he hopes it comes out meanly). “You and Jaemin deserve each other.”

“Thanks.” Then Jeno snickers, lips quirking, lopsided and mischievous, “But I asked you to tell me something I _don’t_ know.”

Minhyung lunges.

After a few moments of half-hearted grappling and childish peals of laughter, Minhyung concedes. They face each other on their sides, like they would do on Jeno’s bed when they would spend the night together, and Minhyung talks. He tells Jeno about how difficult it is to teach alone, how he misses his more outspoken brother being there with him. Minhyung’s usually just there for demo sparring, most of the time; he doesn’t do well with words that aren’t from a script or a lyric sheet. He is even worse with telling people what to do.

He tells Jeno about how he flushes with embarrassment every time he stumbles over his words when he’s giving out orders or running his student through a drill. He tells Jeno about how he flushes even more when his student, the little shit, laughs at him for his mistakes. Students aren’t supposed to laugh at you, are they? None of their clients ever laughs at Taeyong, but maybe that has more to do with Taeyong being perfect than with Taeyong being Taeyong. Minhyung is just… Minhyung. And he turns red just thinking about it.

Then he tells Jeno about the music they have to leave on during their sessions, because otherwise the dojang just feels too empty and it makes them both feel a little restless. And it’s strange, because it isn’t as though Minhyung has a playlist for when he’s alone or with just Jeno. And, of course, he has to talk about how Donghyuck sings sometimes, and how nice his voice is, and how he might just want to hear the other boy sing when they’re not both reeling from exhaustion.

And then he tells Jeno, quieter this time, about how he still doesn’t understand why, between his brother and him and all the other people who work for the dojang, is it _Minhyung_ who has to do private lessons? Why does it have to be _Minhyung_ watching over Donghyuck and taking his jokes and pressing ice onto his bruises and plastering butterfly bandages meant for three year-olds over his cuts and scratches? Why does it have to be _Minhyung_ dealing with the heat and the sweat and the… all-around peculiarity of this entire arrangement?

“Is that a teaching problem or a Donghyuck problem?” Jeno asks after a beat of silence and Minhyung, mildly, senses as though he’s said too much.

Minhyung doesn’t like the look on his face. “It’s not Donghyuck’s fault!”

Jeno laughs. “It’s a you problem, then.”

For a lack of any better thing to say, Minhyung covers his face with his hands and groans, loudly and with emotion.

Apparently tired of feeding off on Minhyung’s general gracelessness, Jeno prattles on aimlessly for a while, filling the silence. He’s trying to construct an image of Donghyuck in his head, it seems, and in the act of merely enjoying his best friend’s voice, Minhyung doesn’t truly process the stream of words. That is, until Jeno hums, “What’s one word that would describe him, hm?”

“Cute,” Minhyung suddenly blurts, surprising both Jeno and himself. He can feel himself warm and reaches up to tug on the neck of his shirt, only to realise that he isn’t wearing one. Awkwardly, his hand drops to his side.

Jeno is grinning, now. “Oh, he’s cute, is he?”

Minhyung groans and pushes Jeno’s dumb face away. “Shut the fuck up.” It isn’t as though Jeno would be able to say otherwise when he actually meets Donghyuck, and, grumbling, Minhyung says as much.

“Whatever you say. But, he’s still in high school, right?”

“You’re saying that like we didn’t _just_ graduate ourselves.”

“It’s still different,” Jeno insists. “Do you even… do you even know where you’re going?”

Minhyung doesn’t understand why they’re talking about this, now, but he humours Jeno and says, “Yeah. We’re going to be classmates.”

And Jeno laughs with his whole body, forehead thumping almost painfully onto the ball of Minhyung’s shoulder. “Four more years stuck together, huh.”

The smile that pulls out of Minhyung is a real one, soft and fond and happy, though he tries to play it off the best he can. “Can’t believe it myself.”

The tinkling of chimes and the rustling of corner-shop-plastic signal Jaemin’s return. His voice is dry when he comes up to the mats and prods at Minhyung to roll away from his boyfriend with the toe of his slip-ons, “What is this? A sleepover?”

“You’re not invited,” Minhyung murmurs, just a tad farouche.

“ _You’re_ not invited,” Jaemin quips back sullenly.

Jaemin is _so_ not cute, Minhyung will never understand what Jeno sees in him. But Jeno only grins at his displeased boyfriend and tugs on the leg of his shorts until they’re kissing in a soft way that makes Minhyung wants to escape from the dojang - _his_ family’s dojang - and hide. “Not at all. What’s in the bag?”

Jaemin pulls away reluctantly, frowning at the sweat that now clings to his shirt from Jeno’s own body, which. Disgusting. “Ice pops.” He pulls out the cool dessert and hands the orange-flavoured one to Minhyung, who takes it with no small amount of childlike glee.

Jeno chooses the purple pop for himself, sitting up and pressing a sloppy kiss to Jaemin’s cheek just because. Jaemin laughs and swats at him with his own yellow ice pop, then tells them to all huddle close. With his phone, he snaps a photo of the colourful treats in a wonky delta formation; he smiles at them innocently when they give him befuddled frowns. “For the memories,” is all he says.

Minhyung doesn’t like to dwell on what he could possibly mean by _memories._ They have always had ice pops during the summer; always have since they were children, and hopefully always will.

He’s almost wistful as he splits the ice pop in half and licks at the juice before it can trail down his hand.

Later, he’ll think that the ice pops remind him of Donghyuck’s bandages.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long! i'm really busy with uni, since i'm on scholarship, and my family's tight on money rn skjdhfksj so it's been really hard to hold it together for a while, now. but anyway! i was just so excited to finally finish this bit that i couldn't wait to post it. the next chapter should be the last, but that's also what i told myself with this one, lmao, so no promises.  
> i ramble a lot, sorry! hope you enjoy reading this as much as i did writing it! <3  
> if you do like it, let me know what you think through a kudos/comment/cc/dm! i really love hearing from you guys and i appreciate everyone who's messaged me over the past few months. you're all very lovely!

The chimes ring.

Minhyung looks up from where he’s positioning a six year-old’s arm at just the right angle for a low block, mouth gaping a bit at the sight of Donghyuck awkwardly standing in the entranceway with a bag clutched to his chest. The other boy seems to notice and winces, fingers picking uncertainly at a vividly purple butterfly bandage on his opposite fist. It looks like the petal of an orchid’s stuck to his knuckles and refused to let go - significantly prettier than what’s hidden beneath it, Minhyung’s certain.

“Can I… I’ll just hang in the back?” Donghyuck says - or asks, Minhyung can’t quite tell. Donghyuck’s eyes flick around, jaw clenched, wavering under the stares the guardians of Minhyung’s students are giving him. Sympathetic, Minhyung gives him a nod and tips his head to the direction of the locker rooms. He smiles to himself as Donghyuck scuttles away.

Then a girl too curious for her own good tries out a side kick on her younger brother who isn’t fast enough to block it, and both siblings burst into body-wracking sobs.

Steeling himself, Minhyung gets back  to work.

When the class is over and he’s finished cleaning up after everyone, it is already half an hour to five. Minhyung makes his way to the lockers and watches Donghyuck with unabashed curiosity. The other boy has a book and loose pages spread out over the bench in front of him, a pen in hand, and his legs crossed beneath him. He’s wearing basketball jersey shorts and a tee that is at least two sizes too big for him; the fabric pooling at his waist and the childish butterfly bandages decorating his skin make him appear to be impossibly fragile.

But looks can be deceiving, and Minhyung knows firsthand how powerful Donghyuck’s front kicks can be. (He has the bruises to prove it, grossly yellow and blue, lined along the dips of his floating ribs in a grotesque cobblestone path.)

“What are you doing here so early?”

Donghyuck flinches, the pen in his hand drawing a jagged line across a page in his surprise, then turns to him. He straightens his shoulders. “Am I not allowed to be here?”

Minhyung shakes his head and takes a seat next to him, rolling his eyes when Donghyuck mutters something about his sweaty form. “It’s fine. I mean, you’re fine. You can come over whenever I’m here, but… you don’t, usually.”

Donghyuck faces his books again. “I just felt like it.”

Minhyung isn’t the most perceptive of people (Jeno tends to be the one to inform him when his daftness is hurting someone’s feelings, but that isn’t the point, now), and yet he hears the lie in Donghyuck’s voice. Minhyung wants to ask him if he’s alright, then thinks about it. He holds his tongue.

Perhaps it isn’t his place.

Instead, he squints at Donghyuck’s notes and makes an attempt to decipher the scrawl.

“Is that… English?”

To his amazement, Donghyuck’s face flushes red. His golden tan doesn’t really allow for blushes - at least, nothing this bright. Minhyung is captivated. Donghyuck covers his notes with a hand and turns away, muttering, “What about it?”

“Nothing!” Minhyung exclaims, still staring. “I just… I don’t know.”

Donghyuck gives him an unimpressed look, then sighs and pulls his hands away. “Okay, whatever.”

Minhyung blinks. “Sorry?” He is absolutely endeared when Donghyuck tips his face away from him, blushing vividly to the tip of his ears. He cannot believe himself. “Do you… do you need my help?”

He sniffs, fiddling with his pen. “You’ve graduated high school, haven’t you?” he asks meanly. It sounds like a kitten’s hiss. (The Lees don’t have any pets, but there has never been a shortage of stray cats around the neighbourhood. The little ones always raise their hairs when Minhyung walks by, but they always like to follow him home, nipping harmlessly at his heels.)

Minhyung tongues at the inside of his cheek. “Yeah.” When Donghyuck refuses to elaborate on what he wants to hear from him, Minhyung scoots a little closer and peers down at the messy penmanship. Whereas Donghyuck’s Hangul calligraphy is compact and neat and just that touch of delicate, his hand at the English alphabet is much more clumsy and reminiscent of a child’s. Minhyung hates how charming that tidbit is to him, when his own handwriting isn’t much better. But somehow with Donghyuck, it’s different. And, wow, perhaps Minhyung can hate _that_ thought even more.

It is only a relatively simple passage, short and to-the-point. The problems are all vocabulary-related, and Minhyung guesses the task here is to find out what the overly complicated terms mean. It isn’t as though Minhyung is perfectly fluent in English, but he and Taeyong grew up listening to Western music enough that learning the foreign language was more of a genuine interest than a chore as it was to most of their peers.

Preparing himself to put his brain to use after almost two months of inactivity and very studiously ignoring the time, Minhyung takes the pen from Donghyuck’s hand (also while pretending to not have been hyper-aware of the touch of Donghyuck’s fingers against his own) and begins to read aloud.

He’s always been told by his teachers that his pronunciation is excellent, one may even say it sounds native - whatever that means. It still makes him preen, though, when Donghyuck watches him with something not unlike awe and tells him as much. This spurs him on, and they spend the next handful of minutes going over Donghyuck’s notes and worksheets and _yes, I’m not actively trying to get you to fail, Donghyuck, why would I even bother?_

“Don’t you have cram school?” Minhyung asks after a while, when he’s noticed that it’s almost halfway through their session and his skin is dry and has lost the sticky quality of post-workout sweat.

Donghyuck avoids his eyes. “Yeah.”

“You don’t sound too sure.”

“I _do_ ,” he sniffs, fingers clenching tight around his pen. They loosen, then, barely. “I mean, didn’t you?”

Minhyung shrugs. “Nah.” When Donghyuck looks up at him in thinly veiled surprise, he purses his lips. He is aware that it’s unusual, to say the least, for a graduating student to not attend cram school, but it isn’t as though his family really has the money to spare, nor were they too bothered about his academic career. Minhyung elaborates in a way that hopefully wouldn’t make Donghyuck feel awkward, “My friend, Jaemin, he’s, uh. He’s scarily smart. Like, he could plan my murder and kill me, successfully, and no one would know.”

Donghyuck’s eyebrow jerks.

Minhyung smiles. “Jaemin spent everyday after school and even our breaks to tutor me and our friend, Jeno. You, uh, you know Jeno, right?”

Donghyuck lifts a shoulder. “You’ve mentioned him, once or twice.”

He nods. “Yeah, okay. And with Jaemin’s help, we both managed to get into our top choices for university, so.”

Donghyuck turns back to his worksheet, the slope of his shoulders uncertain, in a manner reminiscent of that first time they met. “Must have been fun.”

Minhyung remembers being cursed out by Jaemin and smacked over the head every time he didn’t understand a problem - which was, honestly, more often than he would have liked to admit - and laughs. “Sure.”

Donghyuck’s small shoulders hunch even more.

Well, he has effectively ruined their working mood (congratulations, Minhyung!). It’s already too late to actually start putting any work in, he notes, observing the time.

Faintly, Minhyung wonders how much trouble he would be in for the next words that leave him.

“How about we try and cool down?”

  


The corner shop down the block has always been Minhyung’s go-to when he’s simply in the mood to get up and get out. It has been this way since he was a child and he realised that a store filled with food he wasn’t allowed to eat and the sheath of glass doors was better than the paper thin walls of his own home and the ears that followed his every move.

“I look disgusting,” Donghyuck sniffs as he follows Minhyung meander through the aisles.

“You look fine,” Minhyung tells him, and it’s more honest than he’d like. Because Donghyuck looks fine - incredible, even. His sloppy gym clothes and worn trainers do nothing to dull the glow of his skin or tone down the shine of his lips. He looks as beautiful as he always does, and the term _fine_ doesn’t quite fit the bill, but the thought is there.

He doesn’t know if Donghyuck catches it, though, because Minhyung very resolutely keeps his eyes on the dessert display and searches for what he brought Donghyuck here for.

“Ah,” he murmurs, plunging his hand into the mist forming inside the cooler and wrapping it around an orange tube. “What flavour do you like?”

“Of what?”

“Ice pop.” When Donghyuck takes too long to think about it, Minhyung reaches for a strawberry-flavoured one and ushers him gently to the counter. Everyone likes strawberry-flavoured things, he justifies to himself, except for Jaemin. But that’s because Na Jaemin is a freak of nature. “If there’s anything you want, just take it. My treat.”

Donghyuck only shakes his head and watches quietly as Minhyung pays for the sweets. He leads them outside and holds out the pink-coloured ice pop to Donghyuck, who takes it with a grateful nod. Rather than eating it right away, however, he snaps it in half and stares at it contemplatively.

“Do you…” Minhyung’s brow furrows. “Do you not like strawberry?” Maybe Donghyuck’s a freak of nature, too. Like Jaemin. That would explain the… the everything, really. The sass and the long legs and the habit of trying to kick Minhyung’s ass in every manner available to them.

“No, it’s just…” Donghyuck watches the broken ice pop contemplatively, thumbs the little overflow that tracks down the side of the plastic tube and brings it to his lips. He mumbles around his finger, muffled, “I just haven’t had one of these in a while.”

Thinking about it, Minhyung’s surprised Donghyuck has even tried an ice pop before. He… Well, he isn’t absolutely certain, but he’s fairly sure that Donghyuck’s the son of a very, very rich family, and he doubts that rich kids usually walk to corner shops to buy weird flavoured ice in hard plastic tubes. “Well,” he says, sucking at his own ice pop, “if you ever want some, you can just ask me, yeah?”

“I don’t think teachers normally buy their students shit,” he points out.

Minhyung is too distracted by the dark figures his lashes make around his eyes to be offended on any level. “I don’t know. We’re friends anyway.” He blinks, releasing the ice pop from between his lips. “Aren’t we?”

He hears a small, sharp inhale. “I -” Donghyuck’s gaze flicks away. “I guess.”

Minhyung is completely _charmed_ by the glimpse of the flush that dusts Donghyuck’s cheeks he sees before Donghyuck turns away.

  


No one finds out about Donghyuck and his quick escapade to the corner shop during hours, so no one gets on his ass about it.

And yet, dinner at home is an ice-cold affair, to say the least.

And he means that in all the ways except literal.

He sits to the right of his mother, diagonal to Taeyong, and away from his father. The windows are open to let air in, but the humidity still stirs low in the room, slipping down his back and pooling on his skin. He wipes his palms on the fabric of his pyjamas, cursing the fact that he’d forgotten to do his laundry - again - and is now stuck with only thick bottoms definitely not made for the summer heat. Unless, of course, he’s keen on wearing thrice and quadruple-times-worn shorts, which he isn’t.

They finish their meal quickly and quietly, as they always do, with Taeyong discreetly tapping away on his phone beneath the table. Minhyung thinks it’s ballsy of him to do so, sitting right by their father’s elbow as he is, but he guesses Taeyong doesn’t really have any need for concern. Not, at least, when their father is scrutinising Minhyung the way he is.

He wonders what he’s done wrong before his father even opens his mouth.

“Minhyung,” he starts.

“Yes, father?”

“How are your classes going?” Minhyung knows somewhere in his consciousness that his father isn’t _always_ disappointed him, but, fuck, if it feels that way sometimes. “You haven’t encountered any… problem students?”

Minhyung swallows around a dry throat and resists the urge to take a sip of hopefully-cool-but-probably-room-temperature water. “I… no, they’re fine. All of my students are brilliant.” When his father doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even twitch, Minhyung picks up speed. “Even the six-to-ten class are improving! I’ve actually had them, like, run through some formations on their own recently and most of them can do entire sets without mistakes. Honestly, I’m very impressed. I actually have this one kid who’s, like, very interested in -”

“Yes, yes,” his father interrupts him, taking a swig of his water. He doesn’t drink, even casually. It’s not good for his health, Minhyung remembers faintly. “That’s great.”

 _Really?_ Minhyung wants to press, but doesn’t. He waits.

“It is impressive that you’ve been seeing to your students so well. It isn’t as though I doubt you -” Taeyong looks up from his phone at this, round eyes flickering between them nervously. Minhyung tries not to wring his hands. “But I will be visiting the dojang next week and sitting in in most, if not all, of your classes.”

“Why?” he blurts, unable to help himself. Wincing immediately, he makes an attempt to correct himself. “I mean, aren’t you busy?”

His father waves him away. “Nonsense. This is nothing.” Minhyung purses his lips. _Nothing._ “I am concerned, though, about one of your students.”

Internally, he sighs. “Lee Donghyuck.”

“Yes,” his father nods. “Lee Donghyuck.” Minhyung steels himself, watching warily as his father interlaces his fingers atop the table. “You see, he’s the son of a very important family.”

When his father doesn’t elaborate, he nods. “Yes,” he says carefully, “I’ve gathered.”

“Good. His parents are concerned about his well-being. As he’s entering his final year in high school, they’re very keen on him graduating without any… trouble.”

Minhyung swallows. He doesn’t have to ask, isn’t expected to ask.

“Donghyuck’s parents are just worried, but I’ve informed them that I have my own son watching after him, so they mustn’t be,” his father says, finally. “You will take good care of him, yes?”

His voice is soft when he says, “Yes, father.”

Some part of him is resentful that it has taken this long for this conversation to happen, another even more resentful that it has had to happen at all.

When he is allowed to return to his room, he locks the door behind him. As quietly as he can, he pushes his window open, tugging on a zip-up hoodie as he goes. The cold air of the evening slaps his face, but he doesn’t mind and continues to climb onto the gentle slope of the roof.

Because they’re _friends_ , he has Donghyuck’s number, now. He can give him a ring whenever he wants, which he does, and just check up on him. Minhyung hasn’t tried it, yet, hasn’t found an excuse that isn’t too obvious to. So he leaves his phone by his bed and clenches his fists over his knees.

He can taste the salt of sweat on his tongue, but his skin is cool to the touch.

  


The next time he sees Donghyuck, he doesn’t bring up what he’s been told.

It isn’t as though it is any of Donghyuck’s business, really, what the head practitioner of their humble, neighbourhood dojang does or which classes he sits in. But a sour taste erupts in his mouth whenever Donghyuck stumbles over a kick and laughs at himself, eyes bright when he looks at Minhyung sheepishly, where only the burst of ice pops used to coat his tongue. The voice of his father plays on loop in the back of his mind like a broken record, words falling away and leaving only the harsh meaning.

His father may not have depreciated Donghyuck with his words, but literally everything else he was and did at that moment did.

Minhyung tries not to resent his father, but sometimes, he makes it so difficult.

The clock reads close to seven, but Minhyung is relentless. He made Donghyuck work on body-training exercises rather than formations after the first hour of their session, even when Donghyuck’s breaths were getting too uneven for his comfort. His golden skin is tinted rouge in splotches, lips dry with exhaustion. Minhyung almost feels bad, but he knows Donghyuck is a stubborn brat. A few more reps of burpees and jump-splits should be good for him.

When it’s five minutes to the end of their session, Minhyung guides Donghyuck through a cool-down.

“Breathe deeply,” he instructs, moving closer to where Donghyuck is splayed on the ground. “C’mon,” he murmurs, gently tugging on Donghyucks’ shoulder until he is sitting upright, legs stretched out in front of him.

Donghyuck groans brokenly, tired and sore and too unused to this sort of activity. Still, he is loose enough that it doesn’t take much for Minhyung to manhandle him into basic stretches that will lessen the ache he’s sure to feel everywhere in the morning, palms slipping on sweat that has accumulated over the hours.

“This is the last one, I promise,” Minhyung huffs in amusement as Donghyuck tries to weakly swat his hands away after Minhyung makes his forehead touch his legs in a low, low stretch.

“I’m going to snap in half,” he hisses, lashes fluttering.

“You can drink water after this,” coaxes Minhyung. He manages to wrangle Donghyuck’s wrists until they’re still, and continues, “You can even shower here.”

As though he can’t help it, Donghyuck makes the ugliest face at the idea. “Disgusting.” It comes out in a haughty sort of wheeze.

Laughing, Minhyung tells him to kneel and hold onto his ankles. Sluggishly, Donghyuck goes through the motions.

Then, without warning and with a firm grip on his shoulder, Minhyung pushes at Donghyuck’s back until his spine bows and his chest points towards the ceiling.

“ _Shit_ , you -!” Donghyuck spits loudly, sputtering off into a pained groan.

“Hold that pose!” Minhyung is quick to order, quickly scrambling away before Donghyuck decides to kick him in the chest again. “Stretch out further. Don’t let go of your - Yeah, like that.”

When Minhyung gives the cue to let him know he’s done, Donghyuck immediately flops over bonelessly, melting into a pathetic pile of grumbles. Minhyung smiles at him fondly and tosses him a towel. “Wipe down. I’ll get you something cool to drink. Any requests?”

“If it isn’t cola, I’m going to cut you,” is all the muffled response he receives.

When Minhyung returns with a moist can of cola in hand, Donghyuck is still resting in the centre of the mats. Now, though, he’s gotten his legs crossed under him and his shirt thrown off to the side. He’s cursing Minhyung’s name seven ways to hell as he’s cleaning the dirtied soles of his feet. Charming.

Seeing him distracted by his task, Minhyung sets the can close to Donghyuck and moves away to gather a spray bottle of alcohol and a clean rag to sanitise the mats with. He starts on the far end of the dojang, sinks to all fours, and gets to work. It’s a mindless, thankless task, cleaning the dojang. His mother has suggested no less than a dozen times in the last few months to hire someone to deal with the upkeep of the place, but his father has always been against it. After all, he has two sons, right?

Minhyung doesn’t mind it much, most of the time. There isn’t much to do, anyway. Just spray here and there, and scrub at the rubber until the skin of his hands feel tight and his knees turn red. He has done this so many times, he doesn’t even need to look at what he’s doing, maintaining a steady rhythm.

Through it, Minhyung can’t help the way his eyes and his thoughts roam.

Minhyung doesn’t make it a habit to count the colours blooming on Donghyuck’s skin, doesn’t believe in doing so. He grew up ignoring the constellations of moles on his skin - the starkest difference between his and his older brother’s perfect porcelain appearance - and it bleeds into his appreciation of even the ones decorating Donghyuck’s. They say that if you count them, they will only multiply; and some juvenile part of him fears that if he tries, he will lose Donghyuck to the ever-present butterfly bandages and the things they hide from Minhyung.

Eventually, Minhyung tears his gaze away. “Hey, it’s already dark out. Shower’s yours.”

Donghyuck is dramatic when he pushes himself to his feet, stringing out his groans and whines. Still, he totters off to the showers obediently, clutching Minhyung’s only towel close to his chest.

Picking up his pace, Minhyung tells himself they are in the middle of summer; it can’t be too cold outside to walk home soaked in his own sweat.

  


The Lee Dojang is a humble, neighbourhood establishment, with doors open to anyone and everyone, anytime of any day.

With the current active members of their staff down to three - that is, Minhyung, his brother, and their father - it gets almost impossibly overtaxing managing the dojang by themselves. Although Minhyung wants nothing more than to laze around all day in the comforts of his own room, free from the stale stench of the worn mats and the noise of two dozen six-to-ten year-olds yelling for his attention, it isn’t a viable option. Even on break, there is a handful of other tasks he has to attend to. Sometimes, though, the stars aline just for him in the form of no errands to run and Jeno taking over a few classes in the dojang, just to help them along.

It is one of those days.

Minhyung has just come out of the shower after long-overdue, well-deserved nap when Jeno calls, moisture rolling off him and seeping into the rug by his bed. Placing his phone on his side table, speaker mode turned on, he pulls on a pair of boxers. He can’t keep the grimace off his face when the fabric catches on the sticky stretch of his thighs, damp even after rubbing a towel over it.

“ _I promise_ ,” Jeno is saying a little breathlessly through the line, “ _I’ll help you with more classes._ ” He sound stretched-thin, and it makes Minhyung feel strangely gratified. There is the sound of something toppling over, then a muffled curse. “ _Ah… shit._ ”

“What happened?” Minhyung asks, brow furrowing in concern. Jeno isn’t very clumsy in the dojang, too used to it to let his awkward limbs knock into corners or obscure paraphernalia Minhyung’s father keeps around.

“ _Nothing. Just managed to almost ruin that plant your mum hates._ ”

“Boo, you wouldn’t have ruined anything at all,” Minhyung lets him know around a grin. The sun has already set, casting his room in a faint pink-purple glow. Still, it’s too warm to slip into some pyjamas, or even a shirt.

“ _Other than your father’s respect?_ ”

“It’s an ugly plant. Exactly his taste. There’s no respect to lose, if you ask me.”

Chuckling, Jeno chides him, “ _Don’t be like that._ ” Minhyung hears him grunt, probably pushing the plant back into its spot by the front counter. Minhyung’s always thought that it deserves to be squirreled away in the backroom, whittled and withered as it is, but his father set it where everyone who comes in can see, so there it will stay. “ _Just send me your classes for next week. I’m free anyway, I’ll pick some up for you._ ”

“You can take all of them,” Minhyung blurts.

“ _Are you trying to get out of your father watching you at work?_ ” Jeno sounds amused, which is entirely unfair.

“The kids like you so much more than they do me. They can have you on Monday through Friday, except Wednesday,” he wheedles. “Please.”

It takes a moment, but Jeno eventually hums, acceptant. “ _Wednesdays and Saturdays are private lessons, right?_ ”

Minhyung murmurs an affirmative, scratching at the faint outline of his abs. The heat from his shower still hasn’t left his skin, making him feel uncomfortably tight. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“ _I know._ ” Minhyung wants to wipe the smug tone from his voice. It really, really doesn’t suit him. “ _I’d like to meet this Lee Donghyuck someday,_ ” Jeno tells him, “ _need to see him for myself. See if he’s as cute you say._ ”

“Jeno…” Groaning, Minhyung patters over to the far end of his room, as far from his phone, and Jeno’s annoying prattling, as he can get. It isn’t very far. He stops by his shelf, and surveys the knick knacks that litter it, eyeing the one object that‘s been haphazardly squeezed into a corner and doesn’t seem to fit amongst the organised chaos. Taeyong brought home a little triangular prism with a preserved cherry blossom flower trapped in its centre from his date with his boyfriend all the way in Busan. Minhyung thought it needed a spot, amongst all the other rather pointless, but ultimately lovely, trinkets he owns.

It stands out, though, awkwardly.

“ _You can consider it as my due, for taking over for you next week._ ”

Minhyung can’t quite say it’s an unfair trade-off, so he doesn’t say anything at all.

“ _I’m just teasing,_ ” Jeno snickers after a long beat of Minhyung’s stubborn silence. “ _Don’t get jealous on me, now._ ”

“Whatever could you possibly mean?” Minhyung calls. “I’m not Jaemin.” Jeno laughs loudly. Grinning, Minhyung moves the prism slightly to the side, onto a spot where he knows the sunlight will hit just right in the morning. In the process of doing so, he displaces the button that Jeno had taken off his uniform blazer and jokingly given to Minhyung when they graduated. He smiles at the memory; Jaemin wasn’t happy about it.

“ _I don’t think he’d like being compared to you._ ” A rustle. “ _Where do you keep the extra rags?_ ”

“In the last locker. Passcode is eight-o-eight-o.” Minhyung nudges the button to the other side of the glass prism, and sets to adjust everything on the shelf so they’re all evenly apart. There are crude rings of dust  where the trinkets had been, and Minhyung sets to look for a rag he can use to wipe it up. It has been a while, he acknowledges, since he’s really cleaned his room. “Don’t forget to lock up after.”

“ _I won’t._ ” There is the telltale clang of steel against steel, and Jeno’s triumphant huff. “ _I really do want to meet him, you know._ ”

Minhyung steps back from his shelf, filthy cloth in hand. “You don’t have to.”

“ _I didn’t say I have to. I_ want _to._ ”

“Jeno…” The exasperation isn’t quite gone from his voice, as is the apprehension.

“ _Maybe your father will let me do the rounds for him in his place? I can ask. Two birds with one stone, and all that._ ”

He stays silent.

He can almost hear the way Jeno shakes his head at him, tired and chagrined in the gently fond way only his best friend can be. “ _Well, just think about it. I’ll finish cleaning up here, then I’ll lock up and head straight home. I’ll drop the keys over at your place tomorrow, okay?_ ”

Minhyung purses his lips. “Okay.”

“ _M’kay. Have a good night, Minhyung. Don’t think too much on it._ ”

Minhyung doesn’t ask what _it_ is. “Okay. Goodnight, Jeno. Take care.”

  


With Jeno on the clock, Minhyung spends his week keeping his thoughts compressed into a tight ball, small enough for him to swallow without having to wonder at the taste of it.

(Whether or not he’ll choke on it is an entirely different story.)

Wednesday has Minhyung buzzing with a sensation he hasn’t felt since university application results were released online and he had, for one mind-numbing moment of eternity, forgot what his applicant number was. Of course, he found out soon after that he was accepted, but that is only thanks to Jaemin who’d checked his results for him.

He doesn’t have Jaemin to save him, today.

While his father still has yet to show up, Minhyung drives Donghyuck through formations. Minhyung doesn’t know what his father wants to see, but he is determined to only show Donghyuck’s best sides this evening, and he doesn’t know anyone who would say that Donghyuck’s formations are anything short of absolutely breathtaking.

Jeno told him, in no uncertain terms, that his father was very pleasant when watching his classes. _It doesn’t look like he swallowed something sour, at least_ , was Jeno’s very generous description. Minhyung trusts that he can take Jeno’s word for it, but a father around someone else’s son is a different man from a father around his own. The bias Minhyung’s father has for Jeno is undeniable, but Minhyung has long since come to terms with it.

Jeno also informed him that his father didn’t do much other than stand by the mirrors and observe the students. It’s a miracle, Minhyung muses, that none of the toddlers in Jeno’s classes pissed themselves from sheer fright. Minhyung’s father tends to have that effect on children.

When Minhyung’s father does show up, Donghyuck has just finished with his water break. He’s doing a run-through of one of the more complicated sets Minhyung’s taught him, executing each move splendidly. Minhyung is, suffice to say, very smug.

Still, he holds up a hand to get Donghyuck to pause and bows low. He bends at the waist so much that, through his dobok, his belt digs into his stomach, just below his ribs. It hurts, and he knows that when he strips down to shower later, he’ll see an angry red line cutting through his stomach. He holds that pose, feeling Donghyuck bow politely, as well. Minhyung doesn’t meet eyes with his student when he feels Donghyuck’s questioning gaze at the side of his head. He is tense all over, down to the muscled cords in his throat, and he waits for a beat before he pulls back up, spine ramrod-straight.

“Father,” he greets, as calmly as he can. His voice doesn’t so much as tremble. “I didn’t expect you today.”

He didn’t. There were only ever two possibilities, of course - either his father shows up on Wednesday, when he can get it over and done with as soon as possible, but boiling with uncertainty until he does, or on Friday, when he could prepare his heart, just for a bit longer. Minhyung can’t decide which one is worse.

It is now or never, and he hopes fervently that it’s for the better.

“Jeno was here during your classes both yesterday and the other day,” he observes, calm and cold.

Minhyung swallows. “Yes. He, uh, owed me a favour. He’s a good instructor; the kids love him.”

His father hums in not-quite-agreement, yet not-quite-disapproval either, so Minhyung takes it as acknowledgement - but he’s not even turned Minhyung’s way. He’s staring right into Donghyuck’s face, then his surveying glance drops slowly, running down Donghyuck’s figure. Minhyung knows he’s sizing him up, calculating the progress this _very important boy_ has made under the tutelage of his less brilliant son. Minhyung can’t be certain if he likes what he sees, notorious for his improbable standards as he is, but he clearly doesn’t hate it, because he just barks at them to return to whatever it was they were doing and to not waste time.

There is trepidation in Donghyuck’s every move, now, and Minhyung can tell that it’s from his father’s heavy gaze. Whereas earlier, he could manage spinning footwork as easy as walking, he can only land each step in an awkward manner. Wordlessly, Minhyung corrects his form on a spinning half-moon kick, pressing in close and raising Donghyuck’s leg to the precise angle himself. Donghyuck’s breath hitches in surprise.

Minhyung tries not to be too tactile with him, because against his best interests and desires, Donghyuck is horribly skittish, still. But this is the only way Minhyung can comfort him and tell him to focus on just him without actually saying anything.

He hopes it works - and, after a few seconds, it does.

Donghyuck’s limbs loosen, drawing back from the forced, edgy confidence he wore earlier like an armour and into his natural charisma. Minhyung’s always thought that Donghyuck’s best feature, amongst all his many other best features, was how _fluid_ he is.

Minhyung’s father would have to be blind to not see this.

The usually-short session seems to stretch on forever, as Minhyung forcibly tries to erase his father’s presence from his mind and fails. But he is determined, so he helps Donghyuck polish the more complex moves in his repertoire until he has them down to an art form. It takes a while, but it takes even longer before his father finally nods at Minhyung then leaves.

The front door slips shut, and the chimes silent, as though he was never there.

Minhyung’s bones instantly turn to mush, and he bends his knees before doing something as pathetic as keeling over in relief, all because his father showed up to his private class. He can’t help but laugh at himself. Ridiculous.

Donghyuck, on the other hand, appears stricken. It is such a far cry from the cocksure bravado he adopted when he first stepped foot into the dojang and acted like taekwondo couldn’t be _that_ difficult that Minhyung actually revels in it. “Was that your dad?” he is almost screeching, but the level of his voice is still fairly controlled, as though terrified Minhyung’s father might hear him.

Minhyung doesn’t bother with replying, instead reaching forward to pull Donghyuck into an uncomfortably humid and tacky embrace. Donghyuck squirms. “You did good,” Minhyung praises him breathlessly, “you did amazing. I’m so proud.”

“Why didn’t you tell me he was coming?” Donghyuck’s voice is still strained.

“I really didn’t know,” Minhyung says in his defense, holding his arms tighter around Donghyuck as he slumps into him. It isn’t a complete lie - he didn’t know his father was going to turn up today, exactly. Donghyuck doesn’t need to know the rest.

“God,” Donghyuck moans, rubbing at his face until his skin is even more flushed and irritated, red from his cheeks to his nose to his forehead. “I must have looked so stupid to him.”

“No, you didn’t,” Minhyung protests immediately. Then he moves back, still holding onto Donghyuck. “You were great, okay? I’m serious.”

Donghyuck gives him an unconvinced stare.

It is late in the day enough that the sun has set outside, late in the summer enough that everyone in the neighbourhood are lumbering around on the streets. It isn’t that it isn’t safe, because Minhyung can’t remember the last time he’s heard crime in the context of their quiet, quaint neighbourhood, but it is still weird to ask Donghyuck if he’d want to walk around with him, when they’re both dog-tired after the most stressful session they have had together to date. It is even more disturbing, though, the thought of letting Donghyuck’s kind, old chauffuer see Donghyuck in such a frazzled state when Minhyung’s supposed to be taking care of him. Dramatically, Minhyung sighs, cupping his own cheek. “I mean. I’m broke, but if it would really make you believe me… I guess I can treat you to an ice pop.”

At that, Donghyuck’s lips stretch into a grin that makes Minhyung think he might be ill. His heart… doesn’t feel right. It goes off-rhythm within his chest in a way that can’t possibly be healthy.

The thought evades him, though, when Donghyuck wipes the sweat from his cheeks and upper lip with the back of his hand, eyes curving into charming crescents with the force of his smile. Minhyung knows when he’s being played with. “Two ice pops,” the little demon bargains.

“Okay,” Minhyung nods. He supposes it’s only fair. “Two ice pops.”

“And ramyeon!”

Minhyung wrinkles his nose, grabbing at the neck of his shirt to dab at his jaw with. “Hey, isn’t that too much?”

Donghyuck morphs his smile into a distressing pout. It is false, absolutely fabricated, but it still stirs something horrific in Minhyung.

“Okay!” he’s quick to yelp. “Two ice pops and ramyeon. Just this once, alright?”

Donghyuck is back to grinning. “Sure. Just this once.”

If Minhyung lets Donghyuck take more snacks off the shelves of the corner shops than they agreed on, he doesn’t say anything and just smiles.

 

 

The realisation hits Minhyung, quick and stinging, while they are cooling down after lessons one day. Donghyuck is spread out on the mats and he’s griping about this or that, and he says, _at school, we never_ \- and an awareness comes sharp and unbidden.

Donghyuck doesn’t have friends, not really.

Donghyuck has never spoken of his peers, not with their first names, and if so, not ever nicely. And air escapes him in a small gasp, because while Minhyung sees all the beautiful things in Donghyuck (in his eyes, and his laugh, and his voice, and his mean jabs, and his legs, and his sheer determination, and -), he also sees everything that people might consider _ugly._

Inexplicably, the idea makes him _ache._

Minhyung has never quite understood that, how some people can be so charming to one, but so repulsive to another. There was someone he shared a class with, once, who was always nice to him. She was quiet and gentle and she always lent Minhyung a pen when he forgot to bring one for himself. But the other girls didn’t like her; they never seemed to spend time outside of class with her.

They said she was ugly. Not in a shallow, surface-level way where the sun can cover up, but one that was beneath the skin. Minhyung didn’t see it.

Sometimes, Minhyung thinks of himself as ugly, too. In ways that are visceral and buried so deep within him that he can’t simply, can’t possibly,  reach in with his hands to rip them out. He knows himself. Maybe he isn’t ugly on the outside, but he knows some part of him is rotten. And if someone sticks around for long enough, it’s going to show.

And it does - he knows that, too. It’s all he can think about, on some days, when he’s alone in the dojang and the muggy air presses down onto him until it’s all he can do to not be swallowed by the stained mats. He covets things that shine like gold, because maybe they will hide the places in him not quite filled and make it seem like he’s glowing the same way, somehow.

To everyone whose life touches his merely tangentially, Minhyung knows all he is is a good kid trying to get the best out of his life. To his two friends, Minhyung knows he is that, and more, and less. Jeno’s seen through him a long, long time ago, and Jaemin not long after. They know Minhyung better than he knows himself.

But, even when they shouldn’t, Jeno and Jaemin still stick around.

They are good people. The best. Minhyung thinks Donghyuck deserves friends like Jeno and Jaemin - friends who _are_ Jeno and Jaemin.

He asks Donghyuck, then, if he’d like to meet Jeno and Jaemin. “Since you practically know everything about them from all the times I’ve talked about them, ha ha,” Minhyung adds lamely. And he watches carefully, very, very carefully, because otherwise he just might miss it and - _oh_ , it’s there. An almost indecipherable stiffening to the set of Donghyuck’s shoulders that lasts for a split-second, before the younger boy is flipping over and giving Minhyung an excited little smile and a small, _yes, I’d like that._

The _okay_ Minhyung gives in reply sounds breathier than he’d intended, but he doesn’t think too much on it. He can’t wait.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: [yukrens](https://twitter.com/yukrens) | cc: [jaemina](http://curiouscat.me/jaemina)


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